The French press in the pay of the Tsar

With the overthrow of Tsarism in February 1917 and the seizing of power by the Bolsheviks and their Socialist Revolutionary allies in October, numerous previously confidential documents were made public (see further on). This allowed Boris Souvarine, a Franco-Russian communist activist to consult Russian imperial archives. He discovered a vast organisation of complicity with the French press that pre-dated the First World War, aimed at promoting Tsarist bond issues to French investors. This affair, in which influential people were corrupted and became accomplices, was denounced by the communist daily L’Humanité in a series of daily articles entitled ’The abominable venality of the French press’ that appeared over a period of several months during 1923 and 1924.

How the Tsarist regime procured the French press in order to issue bonds

When the affair blew up, the corruption of the press by the financial sector was far from being new. A scandalous French fund raising scheme to build a canal in Panama had functioned in the same way. In the case of the Russian issues the Russian empire and the issuing banks purchased advertising in the newspapers of greater distribution that praised the Russian financial situation and the solvency of the Tsarist debt. According to Raffalovich this advertising involved censorship – news of difficulties in Russia’s war against Japan or of the revolutionary unrest in 1905 was not considered to be presentable to potential investors! The documents indicate that there may also have been false subscriptions. The Stockbroker’s Corporation, newspaper board members and politicians blackmailed the Russian government into making bigger payments and so maximised their profits.

The revelations in L’Humanité are based on authentic documents. Among the incriminated newspapers, only Le Matin initiated proceedings against the communist organ. From the first day of the trial, Vladimir Kokovtsov, the Tsar’s Finance Minister almost without interruption between 1904 and 1914, and head of the government between 1911 and 1914, was called to the box. A reactionary exiled in France, it was not in his best interestInterestAn amount paid in remuneration of an investment or received by a lender. Interest is calculated on the amount of the capital invested or borrowed, the duration of the operation and the rate that has been set. to put the press under accusation but he did bear witness to the honesty of his former collaborator Raffalovich. L’Humanité was technically condemned to pay 10,000 francs damages compared to the 1,500,000 francs demanded by Le Matin and the court recognised the authenticity of the revealed correspondence. Finally, in 1924, Maurice Bunau-Varilla, the owner of Le Matin, himself highly implicated in the affair no longer hid his sympathies for the authoritarian nationalisms coming to power in Europe to resist communism. He supported Fascist Italy and later Nazi Germany. During the occupation of France, Le Matin collaborated with the Vichy regime. After the liberation of France it was shut down.